Thanks for the replies! I was waiting all weekend to get an email that someone replied, but none came. Damn forum...

Personally, I love the look of UCM, but all their ships just seem over-costed/under-performing on paper. Regardless of which fleet I decide to go with for competitive gameplay, I plan on building a UCM fleet for casual games. They are just too cool!

It does surprise me that Shaltari seem to be most people's pick for the top tier fleet. I guess I can see the arguments with their massive scan range, low signatures, rerollable shield saves, and good ground game.

I'll be at AdeptiCon next month playing DFC, so hopefully I'll get to see some good examples of competitive fleets from all the factions. I just wish that AdeptiCon had a 2000-2500 point tournament. Those huge games were always fun with old school Warhammer Fantasy!

The one thing that turned my game around was learning to use the Active Scanning Order.

My first regular opponent was a scourge player (UCM myself). Scourge are terribly deadly up close. Typically I found the game would go ok for me as long as I was able to achieve an upper hand before they got too close to me. If I didn't it would go south pretty quickly.

Learning to add more frigates in more groups for the purpose of scanning turned my game around. Remember, one ship in each GROUP can active scan not battlegroup. With more frigates means more scanning means more long range burnthrough shots which means happy UCM player.

I think learning that Signature dance with your opponent is a hard to do for new players. First, they want to bring only the biggest ships and few frigates which makes it hard to scan a bunch. Second, scanning feels almost like giving up a shot and therefore wrong. You need to get into that mindset that scanning and hitting the right target from a long range is better than cruising up the board to hit anything in range. The point is to scan and kill whatever is in your way of winning the scenario rather than kill whatever is available to you.

As for scourge I don't accept that they are OP. They have advantages and disadvantages like any other. I think they are easier to play at times and I think they can be more punishing to their opponents mistakes but that is far from OP.

In addition I would add that Silent Running is treated the same way by newer players. It feels like a waste because your giving up your chance to shoot. However, if silent running means losing a major spike and keeping your ship alive then its more than worth it. But even for myself it sometimes goes against my basic instinct.

Yeah, I realized I need to space out my Limas and other frigates in my battlegroups to make better use of Active Scanning.

I noticed that a lot of lists have New Cairo pairs in them. Are these that much better than Berlins? The loss of a point of armor, 2 hull points and the wing guns seem like an awfully big hit for saving 17 points!

Depends on your strategy. UCM have the command card that lets you reroll your Mass Driver guns but there is also a card that lets you shoot a burnthrough laser twice.

Burnthroughs are only narrow arcs so you basically have to be pointing right at and at the same orbital layer as your opponent. If you are weapons free you can't change arcs or move orbital layers. New Cairos have that advantage over the St. Peter and others because they don't need to be weapons free as that is their only weapon. But like you said. 4+ armor, fewer hull points. But also multiple targets for your opponent.

Mass Drivers have a more flexible arc, can shoot at multiple targets ie. a pack of close action frigates moving your way. The flexibility allows you to move around more, run and hide behind debris fields if necessary but still be within arc for the most part. But to get the most out of it you will need to be weapons free which means spikes.

Also burnthroughs are just fun to play. The luck factor makes for very tense games. Nothing like shooting a St. Petersburgh on Weapons Free, critting your first rolls and going to cause 8+ crit damage.